The Numbers

The church movement is not all about numbers, but looking at the trends of where churches are growing, stalling, or dropping can help us to better discover why movement is occurring in the manner it is. The great commission calls us to preach the gospel to all corners of the earth, allowing others to hear the word of God and accept Christ as their Lord and savior. Below are some statistics about the condition of the American church:

Reported from American Church Statistics:
* In America, 3500 – 4000 churches close their doors each year
* Half of all churches last year did not add one new member through conversion growth
* Churches lose an estimated 2,765,000 people each year to nominalism and secularism

Excerpted from The Condition of the Church in America, complied by Andy McAdams

* 1,400 pastors in America leave the ministry monthly.
* Only 15% of churches in the United States are growing and just 2.2% of those are growing by conversion growth.
* 10,000 churches in America disappeared in a five-year period.

Looking at these statistics is alarming to me. Even though the church I go to may be seeing more people accepting Christ every month, that doesn't mean that the same holds true for everyone else. Thinking about the American church in a broader spectrum, it is alarming to think that the body of Christ is not being nourished in America right now. Most churches are not bringing in the sick and making them well. A lot of churches can't keep their members coming back. Pastors are getting frustrated and leaving the ministry.
The American church is in a crisis right now. American culture is in a crisis right now. However, it is times like these when we, as a body of Christ, start to see how much we truly need God's grace to make any of His work possible. The numbers are tedious, they show us that something is wrong, but the numbers themselves won't answer the call of God. The numbers make us lose hope, when they display the quantitative facts. However, this doesn't mean God has "stopped working" in America, we just haven't looked at the qualitative facts of what God has actually done. God will work miracles in America, we just need to trust Him and keep living out His word, no matter what the numbers may indicate.